$1.20 NLHE MTT: Bet Sizing and Fear of the Suckout

[nabmom]

Situation:
Middle stage of an 18-person SnG. Several folds and my open raise (3 bb) from the button leave me heads-up with a big-stacked BB. The flop gives me four to the nut flush. My feeling is that villain called my pre-flop raise because he has a big stack and I've been doing a lot of stealing on the button. I have lots of outs to hit the nut flush and believe I have the best hand before and on the flop.

But...
A villain can always suck out and I can always be reading things the wrong way. So in this situation, when I'm checked to, what should I do? I tend to make big continuation bets (pot-sized) to get the villain out of the hand. Is that the right way to play? Shouldn't I be betting for value instead? Is this a way-ahead or way-behind scenario?

How would you handle the pre-flop and flop play, and why?

Absolute, $1.20 Buy-in (50/100 blinds) No Limit Hold'em Tournament, 6 Players
Poker Tools by CardRunners - Hand Details


Hero: 1,595 (16 bb)
UPNDOWN61109: 810 (8.1 bb)
FISHON1985: 2,925 (29.3 bb)
IBBER: 3,570 (35.7 bb)
UPHILLBILL: 2,280 (22.8 bb)
LOOKIN4LIFE: 3,000 (30 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BTN with 9

A

3 folds, Hero raises to 300, UPNDOWN61109 folds, FISHON1985 calls 200

Flop: (650) 7

6

T

(2 players)
FISHON1985 checks, Hero ???

 

[brank]

The fact that they are "big stacked" doesnt give a real read on villain, did they win by being a calling station and getting lucky or were they tight and only showing down strong hands

This a great flop for your hand. You also have a gut shot to go with the nut flush draw and quite likely hitting an A is good here too.

Definitely C bet this. You have a ton of equity vs their range and you might even be holding the best hand. Im probably willing to get it in here. Im no tourny expert but in a mid stage of a 18 man I think you can play for stacks here and try to go deep.

 

[cjatud2012]

Situation:
Middle stage of an 18-person SnG. Several folds and my open raise (3 bb) from the button leave me heads-up with a big-stacked BB. The flop gives me four to the nut flush. My feeling is that villain called my pre-flop raise because he has a big stack and I've been doing a lot of stealing on the button. I have lots of outs to hit the nut flush and believe I have the best hand before and on the flop.

But...
A villain can always suck out and I can always be reading things the wrong way. So in this situation, when I'm checked to, what should I do? I tend to make big continuation bets (pot-sized) to get the villain out of the hand. Is that the right way to play? Shouldn't I be betting for value instead? Is this a way-ahead or way-behind scenario?

How would you handle the pre-flop and flop play, and why?

Absolute, $1.20 Buy-in (50/100 blinds) No Limit Hold'em Tournament, 6 Players
Poker Tools by CardRunners - Hand Details


Hero: 1,595 (16 bb)
UPNDOWN61109: 810 (8.1 bb)
FISHON1985: 2,925 (29.3 bb)
IBBER: 3,570 (35.7 bb)
UPHILLBILL: 2,280 (22.8 bb)
LOOKIN4LIFE: 3,000 (30 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BTN with 9

A

3 folds, Hero raises to 300, UPNDOWN61109 folds, FISHON1985 calls 200

Flop: (650) 7

6

T

(2 players)
FISHON1985 checks, Hero ???

honestly I probably fold this pre-flop. We have 16bb's left, so a raise and a c-bet puts about half our stack into the pot, which is not a situation I want to be in. If I did raise, I would raise smaller, probably 2.5bb. Also, consider who is in the BB on this turn. Big stacked players generally are harder to steal from than medium stacked players, so we have less fold equity pre-flop, which makes our steal attempt even less profitable. Plus you said you've been stealing a lot, so your image isn't that great, which means you should be steering away from the more marginal steals.

Wow, this is more of a fold pre-flop than I thought, lol. With this stack size, I'd focus less on trying to steal the blinds in late position (the way you would in a MTT) and instead re-steal a lot, as well as make calls from the BB against opponents who are likely to be wide. Check out Greg Jones' videos here on CC about appropriate calling ranges in these situations.

As played, on the flop we have ~t1300 left behind and t650 in the pot, and we have a pretty monster hand. Honestly I think I'd just shove to try and create the most fold equity, betting about t450 and calling any shove is probably +$EV too.